A repeat of last week's homework accidentally went out today. I will send home the correct homework tomorrow. If you would like to get started, the students should do pages 21 - 26 in their math books. As always, reading twenty minutes nightly is also part of the homework this week. For writing, students need to plan one more "how to," so deciding what your student would like to write or draw about this week can also help you get started. My apologies for the mix up!

Room 16 is in need of recess snacks (goldfish, pretzels, etc.) Thank you! Also, our electric pencil sharpener is broken. If anyone would be able to replace it, it would be greatly appreciated! As always, these are donation requests, and no donation is ever necessary. Thanks again.

In science a few weeks ago, the students were engineers. They constructed towers out of solid materials. We also talked about the properties of different solids, such as flexible and rigid. Lately, we have been exploring liquids. See if your child remembers what it means if a liquid is viscous!

Color me embarrassed, it seems the blog I wrote this weekend did not post! Oh, technology! I will try again with loading our science pictures when I get home to a faster internet connection. Thanks for your patience! I did want to inform you of the daily book bags going home today. It is simply a ziplock bag with your child's name written on it. The book inside is precious, however, since classroom sets of leveled books are expensive. Thank you in advance for handling the books with care and helping your child keep track of the books! Your child should be able to read the book independently. Encourage him or her to read it a few times, especially if it's on the shorter side (first graders enjoy reading to a all family members, pets, even stuffed animals). The book bag comes back to school daily! Students will get a new book a few times a week. Thank you for helping your child grow as a reader with this routine! Also, a friendly reminder, room 16 has library tomorrow (the red or blue cloth bag). Thanks, again!

Hi room 16 families!

Please expect a nice classroom update this weekend. I have pictures of our latest science investigation! It has been difficult to post this week because I began teaching Reading Recovery (a reading intervention) right after school. Now that I have done so for a whole week, I have, more or less, adjusted to this addition to my schedule. I look forward to posting more frequently! 

I did want to remind everyone that we have library today, so please have your child bring his or her library book (in the red or blue cloth bag) to school. Thanks!

I noticed that some students have put completed homework pages in their red folders already, which is awesome! I check the folders daily, but do be aware that I will not remove any completed homework until Friday. This is simply for my own organizational purposes. Feel free to put completed homework in the folder, as it is a great place to store it. Just know that if the homework is still there it is because I left it there purposely. 

In math, we are finishing a unit on counting and quality. In writing, we made "heart maps" today (students fill a heart in with what is close to their hearts, such as: family, places, etc), and yesterday we worked on a "We all have stories to tell" chart (see below). This is in preparation for tomorrow, so when we write stories, students can be independent in finding topics about which to write. The beginning of the year is about building a lot of routines, and going seemingly slowly in mathematics and writing at first will pay off in the amount of teaching I can accomplish when our routines are second nature. 

Just for fun... what some of our budding engineers built at Friday's choice time!